A choice collection of stories for the preschool child, carefully selected, adapted, and arranged by two veteran kindergarten teachers. Includes nature stories, holiday stories, fairy tales and fables, as well as stories of home life. Emphasis is placed on fanciful tales for their value in the training of the imagination and on cumulative tales for developing a child's sense of humor and appealing to his instinctive love of rhyme and jingle. Ages 4-7

464 pages

$15.95

THE SNOWDROP

C. S. B. Adapted from Hans Christian Andersen.

[280] THE snow lay deep, for it was winter time. The winter
winds blew cold, but there was one house where all was
snug and warm. And in the house lay a little flower;
in its bulb it lay, under the earth and the snow.

One day the rain fell and it trickled through the ice
and snow down into the ground. And presently a sunbeam,
pointed and slender, pierced down through the ground
and tapped on the bulb.

"Come in," said the flower.

"I can't do that," said the sunbeam; "I'm not strong
enough to lift the latch. I shall be stronger when the
spring time comes."

"When will it come spring?" asked the flower of every
little sunbeam that rapped on its door, but for a long
time it was winter. The ground was still cov-
[281] ered
with snow, and every night there was ice in the water.
The flower grew quite tired of waiting.

"How long it is!" it said. "I feel quite cramped. I
must stretch myself and rise up a little. I must lift
the latch, and look out, and say 'good morning' to the
spring."

So the flower pushed and pushed. The walls were
softened by the rain and warmed by the little sunbeams,
so the flower shot up from under the snow, with a pale
green bud on its stalk and some long, narrow leaves on
either side. It was biting cold.

"You are a little too early," said the Wind and the
Weather, but every sunbeam sang "Welcome," and the
flower raised its head from the snow, and unfolded
itself—pure and white, and decked with green stripes.
It was weather to freeze it to pieces—such a delicate
little flower—but it was stronger than any one knew.
It stood in its white dress in the white snow, bowing
its head when the snowflakes fell and raising it again
to smile at the sunbeams. And every day it grew
sweeter.

"Oh," shouted the children, as they ran into the
garden, "see the snowdrop! There it stands so pretty,
so beautiful—the first, the only one!"

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